First of all, I would like to clear up a few items. Were there failed policies of the Bush Administration? Perhaps, in fact, for the sake of argument, let us say yes. The last eight years....blah, blah, blah. Let us also consider that, despite these so called failed policies, the citizens in our country were doing pretty well up until 2006 and were kept safe since 2001. What changed? You guessed it, we elected a Democratic Congress. That is not to say that our congress acted democratically, more correctly, our Congress was run by the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi and her cronies would not allow a single substantive debate regarding any of the major issues that we are having to deal with right now. In fact, we were told by Barney Frank that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in great financial shape. Either he was too stupid to know any better or he knew what was going on and chose to do nothing about it because democrats believe that every American is entitled to own a house, whether or not they can afford it. I do not care which is the case, either way he should not be in charge of the financial services committee, nor should he even be a congressman. This is just one example, there are many others.
You see, the majority party in congress has the responsibility of setting the agenda with regard to which items will be placed on the schedule to be discussed, debated and ultimately voted on. Remember the "drill here, drill now" mantra? Congress was never allowed to vote on that due to the fact that Nancy Pelosi did not want to, period. Our government has gone from being a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" to being a government "of the politician, by the majority party and for the special interest groups who put them there". This is not the way our founding fathers wanted it and this is not the way to solve our problems. It has been said that those that fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it, and our politicians (for lack of a better word) are playing a dangerous game with the futures of our children and grand-children.
Let me be clear, we can not spend our way out of this economic recession, soon to be a depression. Japan tried for 10 years and now they are in a major depression. They have a GDP growth rate of -10%, during the great depression we had a GDP growth rate of between -2% to -12%. When companies do a bad job, they need to fail, no matter who they are or how big they are. We can not bailout these companies because; number one, it probably will not work; and number two, if we take all of the risk out of being in business we will promulgate this corruption that has run so rampant throughout our big businesses, Wall Street and, most importantly, our government. Forget special interests, the only special interest that there should be in Washington in us, the people.
Let me tell you straight up, this culture of corruption does not know race, it does not know sex, it does not know religion, and it does not know party affiliation. There are bad people on both sides of the aisle because our government, like big businesses, got too big for their own britches and lost sight of their priorities. In 2006, we Republicans got slapped around and it was a sobering wake up call. Unfortunately, it was a little too late and we lost in 2008 also. But, let there be no mistake about it, we are awake now and there are some good people ready to put our government back where it should be..in the hands of "the people".
It is time for us to take back our government from those who continue to game the system for their own selfish political and financial gain. Now, hear what I just said, we need to take it back. Our politicians are not going to just give it back because we have let them have a good life off of us citizens for far too long, besides, if we eliminate lobbyists, most of them will not be qualified to work anywhere else. By take it back I mean we need to "vote the bums out". We have got to stop being so ignorant as to say that, "I have voted Democrat (or Republican) all of my life and that is how I am going to vote". That is just plain stupid. Why would you vote for some criminal just because they are affiliated with one party or the other? If you were on jury duty on a trial for someone who was accused of harming a child, and the evidence against them was overwhelming, would you cast your vote as not guilty just because of their political affiliation? Well, that is exactly what you are doing every time you vote for one of these criminal incumbents.
Let me give you an example. I am running for congress in one of the most Democratic districts in our nation against an incumbent who has been our "representative" for over 12 years. In 12 years, he has not passed a single bill; he has broken his oath to uphold the constitution by not even living in our state; he is being investigated by the F.B.I. for money laundering; he is very connected to the impeached Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich; he received serious illegal campaign contributions from Harry Sargeant III and that is only the tip of the iceberg. But he holds one of the safest seats in Congress because of the demographics of his district. Am I saying these things because I am running against him? Absolutely not! I am running against him because of these things. Is it a tough, uphill battle? You bet, but my kids and your kids deserve a better congressman than this.
Do you want to talk about change? Well, I do too. This type of situation around the country needs to change but, it is up to us to change it. We need to get more involved in our government. We need to find out the truth about our elected officials. We can not rely on the fact that someone belongs to a certain party so they must be good or bad. We must hold our elected officials accountable and we must tell them, as Donald Trump did so many times on his television show, "You're fired", when they fail to adequately represent us.
Remember, we may get the government that we deserve but let's make sure that we give our children the government that they deserve.... and this is not it.
May God bless you, our children, our troops and the United States of America,
Edward
